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I’m guessing I’m being grayed because I’m suggesting Heroku might go out of business? Ok let me explain. That is one scenario, it’s unlikely but there might be

I’m guessing I’m being grayed because I’m suggesting Heroku might go out of business? Ok let me explain. That is one scenario, it’s unlikely but there might be other similar scenarios that pose risk being tied in to one providers stack. DDOS, TOS issues, simply out growing them, Heroku themselves having TOS issues with their cloud. There are almost weekly posts on HN of “this major service is down” and “that major service is down”. I understand a scrappy startup needing to focus on growth and using the most convenient tools, but once you’ve been around a bit it’s time to think of boring stuff like what if stuff goes wrong. It might be technical, security related, business related or political. Eliminating SPOFs is wise. Happy for you to downvote this but if you do please drop a sentence to say why I’m wrong. I’m happy to be proved wrong it helps me learn.

mypalmike 8y ago
I didn't downvote, but... "I understand a scrappy startup needing to focus on growth and using the most convenient tools" Well, there's your answer. As a scrappy startup, you can't afford to plan migrations you aren't planning to execute. It's that simple. Heroku is not going away (they're owned by salesforce) and they have a good reputation for uptime. The "what if" worst case scenarios have to be weighed against other business concerns. And this company appears to have done a good job of navigating such things.
scarface74 8y ago
Well let’s see where to start. Terraform is not magic. All of the provisioners are specific to a platform.
sudhirj 8y ago
Heroku mandates the use or 12Factor apps, which makes it much easier to migrate. They support docker as well. Pretty much every app I write I usually starts on Heroku and migrate later if the client / traffic needs it, and it’s always been seamless. Most apps have Dev/test on Heroku with a staging and production on AWS, and because of the 12 factor principles, which also work on Beanstalk / ECS / normal servers it’s never a problem.
- ukoki 8y ago
  Yep. Or bake your app into a docker image using https://buildpacks.io/docs/using-pack/building-app/ https://buildpacks.io/docs/using-pack/building-app/ and deploy to any k8saaS such as GKE, EKS, or AKS.
stickfigure 8y ago
Downvoter (of your previous comment) here. Your comment is not only bad, but outright dangerous. This is a company that is burning through hundreds of thousands of dollars on hosting and staff with no business model yet. The primary risk to this company is not their host going away; the primary risk to this company is that they won't figure out how to make money. Worry about optimizing your serving infrastructure after you have a business that you know is worth saving.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  Cool thanks it’s nice to hear the story behind the downvote. I agree you’d need to be flying their plane so to speak to know the reasoning behind their business decision. I still forget there are businesses that burn through that much cash looking for product market fit etc. it’s not the European way so I often don’t correlate spending 100k/m on hosting with fighting to stay alive. Anyway I was sort of making a general point about lock in. It may not apply to this company.

mypalmike 8y ago

I didn't downvote, but... "I understand a scrappy startup needing to focus on growth and using the most convenient tools" Well, there's your answer. As a scrappy startup, you can't afford to plan migrations you aren't planning to execute. It's that simple. Heroku is not going away (they're owned by salesforce) and they have a good reputation for uptime. The "what if" worst case scenarios have to be weighed against other business concerns. And this company appears to have done a good job of navigating such things.

scarface74 8y ago

Well let’s see where to start. Terraform is not magic. All of the provisioners are specific to a platform.

sudhirj 8y ago

Heroku mandates the use or 12Factor apps, which makes it much easier to migrate. They support docker as well. Pretty much every app I write I usually starts on Heroku and migrate later if the client / traffic needs it, and it’s always been seamless. Most apps have Dev/test on Heroku with a staging and production on AWS, and because of the 12 factor principles, which also work on Beanstalk / ECS / normal servers it’s never a problem.

ukoki 8y ago
Yep. Or bake your app into a docker image using https://buildpacks.io/docs/using-pack/building-app/ https://buildpacks.io/docs/using-pack/building-app/ and deploy to any k8saaS such as GKE, EKS, or AKS.

stickfigure 8y ago

Downvoter (of your previous comment) here. Your comment is not only bad, but outright dangerous. This is a company that is burning through hundreds of thousands of dollars on hosting and staff with no business model yet. The primary risk to this company is not their host going away; the primary risk to this company is that they won't figure out how to make money. Worry about optimizing your serving infrastructure after you have a business that you know is worth saving.

quickthrower2 8y ago
Cool thanks it’s nice to hear the story behind the downvote. I agree you’d need to be flying their plane so to speak to know the reasoning behind their business decision. I still forget there are businesses that burn through that much cash looking for product market fit etc. it’s not the European way so I often don’t correlate spending 100k/m on hosting with fighting to stay alive. Anyway I was sort of making a general point about lock in. It may not apply to this company.